It is always impeccably coiffured, not a note out of place, ensemble precise . . . The Fauré Quartet are supremely proficient . . .

Record Review /
Nalen Anthoni,
Gramophone (London) / 01. May 2006

. . . the flawless fingerwork of the piano . . . contributes great brilliance . . . the E flat Quartet is well handled . . . There is a good response to the longer lines that characterize the work, and . . . sensitive and very effective exchanges between the bright, forward tone of the piano and the string trio answers . . . The players also help to articulate Mozart¿s structures with greater variety of tone and with rather more flexibility of tempo. This is a bright . . . performance . . .

Record Review /
John Warrack,
International Record Review (London) / 01. May 2006

The slow movements are the best . . .

Record Review /
Tully Potter,
The Strad (Harrow, UK) / 01. June 2006

The performances by this group of young German musicians, which have received positive reviews elsewhere, offer highly proficient, modern Mozart-playing. The first movement of No. 1 . . . showcases the group's strengths . . . dynamics are used effectively for shape and contrast, intonation is flawless, and articulations are clean as so many whistles.

Mozart's Piano Quartets: A Synthesis of Chamber Music and Concerto

In Mozart's handwritten catalogue of his works, the first of his piano quartets - K.478 in Gminor - follows immediately after his Masonic Funeral Music, while the second - K.493 in E flat major - is entered immediately after Le nozze di Figaro. In each case this juxtaposition is more than mere chance. Completed in July 1785, K.478 in G minor - a key that Mozart used only rarely but which had very specific expressive associations for him - inhabits a world of emotion which at least in the case of its opening Allegro is related to that of the Masonic Funeral Music. Its companion piece was completed on 3 June 1786, its brighter major tonality creating a far more relaxed impression and evoking the mood of an operatic scene pulsating with vitality.

Both works - they are Mozart's only contribution to the medium of the piano quartet - share the same artistic aspirations, even if their basic characters are very different. From a historical point of view, it is Mozart whom we have to thank for establishing the hybrid combination of string trio and piano on a convincing footing, although it has to be said that with the exception of Schumann, Brahms and Reger, no other composer followed him down this road and wrote piano quartets of such merit. In the second half of the 18th century, chamber works with keyboard accompaniment still belonged for the most part to the world of galant entertainment. This thought was no doubt uppermost in the mind of the publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister when he commissioned three piano quartets from Mozart. The precise details of this commission are shrouded in mystery, and a later report on the fate of this commission has likewise come down to us only at second-hand in the form of a remark by Georg Nikolaus Nissen to the effect that the first quartet "initially appealed to so few people that the publisher Hofmeister [sic] made the composer a present of the advance on condition that the latter did not write the other two quartets that had already been agreed to; the publisher would then be released from his contract". This report may well be true in essence, as Hoffmeister did indeed publish only the Gminor Quartet, although we now know that he also spent some time working on its successor: he had already engraved the viola, cello and piano parts in his own workshop before the score passed into the hands of his rival in Vienna, Artaria & Co., who engraved the missing violin part and published a full set of parts in 1787.

The failure of these two works to make any impression on their audiences may seem incomprehensible to us today, given their outstanding musical qualities. But we must remember that in Mozart's day chamber music was still addressed for the most part to performers, rather than to passive listeners in the concert hall. Even if the amateur musicians of the period were often astonishingly accomplished, they generally expected works that were technically not too difficult, works that were easy to understand and agreeably entertaining - performing music together was a prime opportunity for social intercourse. (Not until a later date did it become customary for listeners to immerse themselves in the music in a spirit of rapt contemplation.) The instant appeal of this kind of tuneful memorability was never really of interest to Mozart, but nor did he deliberately flaunt his artistic stature by writing complex music. Yet his creative curiosity and boundless artistic abilities released an enormous potential for discovering new solutions in the challenges that he made his own, giving many of his compositions the stylistic uniqueness that renders otiose all comparisons with similar works by other musicians. This is certainly the case with these two piano quartets, which tower above their age, unequalled as expressions of an utterly personal compositional language.

They owe their individuality in essence to the experiences that Mozart gleaned during his early years in Vienna when he was working on a series of keyboard concertos and string quartets. In the case of the latter he had to contend with the technical challenges involved in creating a balance between four equal voices, while in the case of the former he had to establish a relationship between solo virtuosity and symphonic ensemble within the framework of a tension-laden dramaturgical structure. The style of writing appropriate to the intimacy of the string quartet, with its densely detailed contrapuntal textures, was now combined with a concertante dialogue between solo and tutti, a dialogue transferred to the public arena. In 1785 and 1786 - and even as early as 1783 with the Quintet K.452 for piano and winds - Mozart must have been extraordinarily attracted by the idea of creating a synthesis of chamber music and the concerto, a synthesis that he will have viewed as a compositional challenge.

One condition for the success of such an experiment lay in Mozart's ability to grant all four instruments equal rights within the musical argument, while at the same time allowing each of the musical partners to come into his or her own. For this, the music needed space in which to unfold, which is why Mozart takes his time in setting forth the full range of combinations of such varied musical ideas. The opening movements of both quartets are cast in regular sonata form. In the Gminor work the unison opening phrase dominates virtually the whole of the movement's musical argument, lending it its sense of tension, whereas a veritable kaleidoscope of themes and motifs is expounded in its companion piece. The slow movements, conversely, are both built around clearly contrasting tonalities and moods: in the Gminor Quartet the contrast is with Bflat major, the relative of Gminor (in his other works in this key, Mozart prefers the relative of the subdominant, Eflat major), while in K.493 the contrast is between Eflat major and its subdominant, Aflat major. In both works, moreover, these middle movements are islands of peace and melodiousness, with moments of unease and disquiet remaining the episodic exception. And both give way to the cheerful joviality of lively rondo finales in the major. These multi-sectional final movements are both built along similar lines, combining the vibrant effortlessness of an envoi with very real musical wit.